“We leave the square on Akbıyık Sokağı, which passes under the railway line and then veers to the right. At the first intersection we turn right on to Mimar Mehmet Ağa Caddesi, and then left at the next corner on to Torun Sokağı, the street of the Grandchild. This brings us to the main entrance of the Mosaic Museum… The entryway here is flanked by the fragmentary remains of ancient marble columns and capitals and other architectural members, all of them parts of the Great Palace of Byzantium, unearthed in excavations during the years 1933-38.
The museum houses mosaic pavements of the Great Palace… The pavements were part of the Mosaic Peristyle, a colonnaded walkway that may have led from the imperial apartments to the Kathisma, the royal enclosure on the Hippodrome. The mosaics depict mostly pastoral views and scenes of hunting and animal combat, along with a few scenes in the Hippodrome, including one in which two tipsy spectators pretend to be a horse and charioteer. The mosaics have been dated to the first half of the sixth century, probably part of Justinian’s rebuilding of the Great Palace.”

John Freely, The companion guide to Istanbul and around Marmara, Companion Guides, Woodbridge, 2000, p. 97